Bringing Business Sense to the IT World...

May 2010 Blog Posts

I’m not a big fan of the built-in Maintenance Plan functionality in SQL Server. I like the interface in SQL 2005 better than 2000 (it looks more like building an SSIS package) but it’s still a bit of a black box. You don’t really know what commands are being run based on the selections you have made, and you can easily make some unwise choices without realizing it, such as shrinking your database on a regular basis. I really prefer to know exactly what commands and with which options are being run on my servers. Recently I had another...

The Professional Development Virtual Chapter for PASS is holding its first virtual meeting on Thursday, May 13 at 1:00 PM Eastern / 10:00 AM Pacfic time. Andy Warren (@sqlandy) will be the speaker. Click here to attend via Live Meeting. Also, check the http://prof-dev.sqlpass.org web site and RSS Feed for ongoing updates and details.

After struggling to defend my SQL Servers from a political attack recently, I realized that I needed better tools to back me up, and SQL Sentry is the leading candidate.
A couple of weeks ago, seemingly from out of nowhere, complaints from the business users started coming in that one of the core internal applications was running dramatically slower than normal, and fingers were being pointed at the SQL Server. Unfortunately, we don’t have a production DBA whose entire job is to monitor and maintain our SQL Servers. The responsibility falls to me to do the best I can, investing only...